How to Really Fix Rikers

By Florence Finkle

June 19, 2015

ON Monday, New York City is expected to settle a three-year-old class-action lawsuit by the Legal Aid Society over excessive use of force at Rikers Island. As a former chief of internal investigations at the Department of Correction, I am a defendant.

News reports suggest that the agreement, with the United States Department of Justice, contains key reforms, notably the appointment of a federal monitor. But unless it takes on the dysfunctional culture at Rikers — enabled by lack of transparency, outdated infrastructure and hostility to civilian oversight — it won’t solve the problem of excessive force. None of the previous settlements did.

Since 1990, the Department of Correction has settled five class-action lawsuits with the Legal Aid Society over the same problems; this settlement will be the sixth. The previous one, Ingles v. Toro, was settled just nine years ago. Back then, the department pledged to revise use-of-force policies, use computers to track violent actions by officers, install video cameras in certain areas and strengthen internal investigations by the end of 2009.

But as I learned, these steps were wholly inadequate. I joined the department in March 2010, after years of investigating police misconduct at the Manhattan district attorney’s office and then at the city’s Civilian Complaint Review Board. The term of the Ingles settlement had ended just four months earlier. I assumed that unjustified force against inmates was fairly rare and that investigative procedures were adequate. I could not have been more wrong.

At Rikers, I saw officers (in full view of cameras and in violation of existing use-of-force policies) assault inmates who refused to follow orders, cursed or spit at them, or otherwise challenged their authority. Officers often struck inmates in the head, resulting in an astounding number of facial fractures and other serious injuries. Even as the inmate population declined, the number of serious injuries that inmates sustained at the hands of officers increased. Too many officers, including supervisors, accepted violence as a first resort. The former assistant chief of security at Rikers and nine other officers face criminal charges in connection with the beating of an inmate in July 2012, and an attempt to cover it up.

When I started, my division was grossly understaffed. Files weren’t stored on computers. Training materials, required under the last settlement, had been lost. Investigations of serious use of force must be completed within eight months, on average, but to meet this time frame, investigators ignored, or failed to gather, essential evidence. They failed to record inmate accounts or obtain medical records, and usually relied on officers’ written reports instead of subjecting them to interviews.

I worked to revamp the investigative process, create training procedures, hire civilian investigators, suspend officers for excessive force, and refer cases for criminal investigation. In four years, we nearly doubled the rate at which our investigations found that officers had violated departmental policy in serious use-of-force cases, but we had too few investigators and the officers’ unions fought us tooth and nail. Norman Seabrook, the president of the Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association, even campaigned for my removal. Last August, the new correction commissioner asked me to resign and then replaced me with a friend of Mr. Seabrook’s, a retired police official with little experience in internal investigations.

One of the most significant reasons officers continue to use violence against inmates is that people rarely see what goes on inside jails. The settlement should require the Correction Department to post online videos showing the use of force. Video has brought national attention to police misconduct and could have the same effect on our jails.

The department needs a wholesale technological upgrade, so that supervisors and investigators have immediate access to officers’ personnel records, including disciplinary histories. A computerized early warning system would help to identify officers who posed a risk to inmates and who needed counseling, additional supervision or training, or reassignment. Rikers also is in desperate need of repairs to its dilapidated plant, which breeds disorder and violence.

The department’s culture is such that officers with histories of excessive use of force have been elevated to supervisory positions. Any settlement must insist that job candidates with gang affiliations or histories of violence are not hired, abusive officers are not promoted, and staff members at all levels are trained to know that excessive use of force will not be accepted.

Currently, jail captains, who are burdened with conflicts of interest and don’t have the authority to acquire important evidence, investigate most use-of-force cases. Responsibility for these investigations should be removed from the uniformed command entirely. The settlement should require that experienced civilians, not officers, lead internal investigations. Instead of simply imposing time limits on investigations, the settlement should link the size of the investigative staff to the size of the caseloads. Finally, investigators should be required to obtain and analyze evidence like witness testimony, medical records and phone recordings.

The Justice Department’s intervention is welcome. But if the settlement isn’t robust, we will find ourselves with a seventh class-action lawsuit in the years ahead.

Florence Finkle was the deputy commissioner for integrity and policy at the New York City Department of Correction from 2010 to 2014.